Internet brings people closer, gives more opportunities and it is a sea, with different kinds of fish. Indi Samarajiva wrote in The Sunday Leader, about few Sri Lankans making a living, without actually going to a conventional office. But simply login in to internet to use Twitter, Skype, Virtual Private Networks (VPN) and so on and make a living, as well as LIVE it. Indi introduces Fahim Farook, Navin Weeraratne and Monalee Suranimala, as tech savvy fishermen in this different kind of sea. All of these characters launch their metaphorical boats from the island of Sri Lanka, off the southern coast of India, recently emerged from years of war but blessed with many English speaking, IT literate people, functional Internet infrastructure and a low cost of living.
LIRNEasia CEO, Rohan Samarajiva, will make a presentation entitled, “Asia: Broadband and forms of government intervention” at the International Institute of Communication’s Annual Conference on “Trends in global Communications: Riding the the next digital wave” to be held from 18-19 October 2010, in Barcelona, Spain. Presentation slides can be downloaded here.
LIRNEasia CEO, Rohan Samarajiva, delivered a guest lecture on the theme “Not one path to the Internet economy” at the University of Zurich, Switzerland, on 14 October 2010. Presenting findings from the LIRNEasia’s study of ICT use at the bottom of the pyramid, Teleuse@BOP3, he used a video of Chamara Pahalawattage, an 18-year-old Sri Lankan, who has utilized his phonefor obtaining more work, and hence, a higher income. Presentation slides from the talk will be posted shortly.
Federal Communications Commission decided to step in and investigate on “Shocking bills” received by mobile customers in USA. FCC is looking into whether the mobile operators must do a better job by alerting the customers when they are roaming in foreign networks. Kerfye Pierre’s thanks for helping out victims of Haiti’s earthquake? A $35,000 bill from T-Mobile. Pierre tells CNN that she racked up about $35,000 while texting family and friends from Haiti with the news that she had just survived the devastating earthquake.
It is needless to reiterate the evil of free money. Universal Service Fund (USF) has been the crucible of boutique corruption for its complexity. The US Government revived this medieval rent-seeking in the early 20th century to favor AT&T. Today AT&T and other heavyweights siphon in excess of US$4 billion annually from the exchequer. And it has been as legitimate as the Collateralize Debt Obligations (CDOs) in the Wall Street.
The most recent addition to the Teleuse@BOP3 working paper series is now available for download. Author Sangamitra Ramachander (University of Oxford) explores the factors influencing the responsiveness of mobile use to small declines in per minute charges among bottom of the pyramid (BOP) users in Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, the Philippines, Sri Lanka and Thailand. The full paper can be downloaded here. Abstract: The private sector in developing countries is increasingly interested in extending mobile telephony services to low income and rural markets that were previously considered unprofitable. Determining the right price is a central challenge in this context.
The UK’s Competition Appeal Tribunal has upheld Ofcom’s objection to O2 and Vodafone launching 3G services over 2G (900MHz) spectrum. The EU policy, however, permits 3G in 900MHz if the national regulator ensures fair competition. But the European policy gurus are silent on replacing copper wire with fiber. The EU regulators, precisely the ones in continental Europe, notoriously over-mystified 3G in early 2000. The Scandinavian regulators, however, carefully avoided the scandalous auction of 3G spectrum.
Chanuka Wattegama, former Senior Research Manager and Broadband Specialist at LIRNEasia, will be one of three speakers at a pre-budget “sanvada” organized by the Pathfinder Foundation, on 14 October 2010 at the BCIS Auditorium, BMICH premises. Chanuka will make a presentation on “ICTs and Telecom: Opportunities, Challenges and Recommendations”. The sanvada will be chaired by Dr. Sirimal Abeyratne, Professor of Economics at the Universitity of Colombo. For more information on how to register (admission free), click here.
Not just eHealth but in any national innovation, finding a champion to own, operate, and promote the new intervention is crucial. We found ours in Sri Lanka to take the Real-Time Biosurveillance Program (RTBP) to the next level; our champion is Dr. R.M.S.
Singapore’s government is globally respected for outstanding governance. It is, however, not immune to making mistakes like other governments of its stature. Last year its investment arm got amputation of 66% value (US$4.4 billion) due to bad investments. The Lion City had paused to revisit its strategy.
The World Summit on the Information Society set several targets to be achieved by 2015 without specifying how they could be measured. The International Telecommunication Union has proposed four specific indicators that could measure progress made by countries toward the foundational Target 10, that of bringing ICTs within the reach of a majority of the world’s inhabitants. Two indicators are for mobile subscriptions and use, and two for Internet use by individuals and by households. Of the four, Indicators 1 and 3 currently exist, albeit with significant shortcomings. This paper proposes a modest improvement to the method of measuring Indicator 3, Internet users, which combines the existing supply-side data with available but incomplete demand-side data.
Asia may boast of being the largest landmass on earth. But it behaves like archipelago in terms of telecoms. Intra-Asian connectivity has been fully depended on submarine cable although the countries share common border. As a result the 60% population of the world has been punished with more than 300% internet bandwidth prices than their European counterparts. Political taboo and over-mystified national security issues have been keeping the Asian countries in isolation.
Findings from LIRNEasia‘s m-health pilot research on the use of mobiles for detection and dissemination of disease outbreaks, led by Mr. Nuwan Waidyanatha, was presented to key stakeholders at a workshop on 29 – 30 September 2010 in Islamabad, Pakistan. Participants consisted of key officials of the ministries of health and IT, public and private healthcare institutions, NGOs and academic institutions. The conference was co-funded by eHealth Association of Pakistan and International Development Research Centre, Canada. Findings have also made to the Pakistani media.
Pakistan has crossed the landmark point of 100 million mobile subscription, according to Pakistan Telecommunication Authority. The Chairman of PTA, Dr. Mohammed Yaseen, presented the SIMs of each five operators to Prime Minister Syed Yusuf Raza Gilani on September 30, 2010 and commemorated the historical activation of 100 millionth mobile subscription. It is the other profile of Pakistan the world is hardly aware of. PTA has been the symbol of regulatory excellence in many respect.
We expressed skepticism when the Labor Party first announced it. We are pleased it is being cancelled. The previous Labour government hummed and hawed about this rural-urban “digital divide”. Eventually, in 2009, it proposed levying a 50p tax on every fixed telephone line in the country: the proceeds were to be given to BT to allow it to connect even the remotest hamlets by 2012. The new coalition administration abandoned that plan, ditching the tax and pushing the target date back to 2015.
Telephone ownership and use As latest ITU data reveals, active mobile subscriptions continues to increase the world over. Just under two years ago, mobile subscriptions were reaching the six-billion mark. 2009 data from the ITU suggests we are well on our way to reaching seven billion connections. Developing countries, in particular, experienced a 19 percent increase in mobile subscriptions per 100 inhabitants between 2008 and 2009, compared with a modest 5 percent growth in developed countries according to the ITU. Mobile subscriptions in the Asia-Pacific alone have now passed the two-billion mark; according to the ITU, mobile subscriptions per 100 rose by 22 percent from 46 in 2008 in 56 in 2009.